To Kill a Mockingbird Background
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Transcript of To Kill a Mockingbird Background
To Kill a Mockingbird
Background Notes
Nelle Harper Lee
Author: Nelle Harper Lee
Born: Monroeville, Alabama, 1926—Still lives there
Family/Friends
Mother: Francis Finch
Father: Amasa Coleman Lee
Descendent of Robert E. Lee
Lawyer in Monroeville
Monroeville Courthouse
Friends/Family cont...
Sister: Lawyer in Monroeville
Childhood Friend: Truman Capote, author. Dill is modeled after him.
Truman CapoteBreakfast at Tiffany’s, In Cold Blood
Lee’s Education/Career
1944-45: Huntington College
1945-49: U. of Alabama (law)
Exchange Student: Oxford U. (UK)
Dropped out of college 6 months prior to receiving her degree
1950: Moved to NYCAirline reservation clerk
Started to write seriously
Education/Career cont…
1960: TKM published just as Civil Rights Movement began to “heat up”
Lee has never published another novel
1962: TKM movie—Double-Oscar winner
Two Big TKAM Awards
1961: Pulitzer Prize
1962: Bestseller’s Paperback of the Year
To Kill a Mockingbird
Historical Context
The Great Depression
Story takes place in early 1930s, the height of The Depression
Franklin Delano Roosevelt=pres.
Harsh life for rural South became tougher
Blacks: House workers, farm-hands
White Farmers: Might own land, but no $
Professional whites also hit hard
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Irony
Poor Whites
Poor Blacks
Jim Crow
The onset of The Great Depression probably made people more class- and race-conscious rather than bringing
them together. WHY?
Segregation: 1930s
Worse in the South
Emancipation Proclamation, 1863. Blacks were not slaves anymore, but had few “real” rights
Jim Crow laws
Lynchings not uncommon